Before the cleaved lands.

Cold winds from the north mix with warmer, southbound currents over the veld. A climate categorized by its wet, hot summers of flash floods and violent thunderstorms that spoke of the gods' very own ire. As well as cold, dry winters with invisible black frost to silently expunge any caught out unprepared in the dark. An ecology of spite. The flora was dominated by fields of golden grasses. An exceptionally successful species able to withstand the semi-arid conditions. The few higher order trees that could find success were relatively sparse. Long living things akin baobabs and acacia. The animals were hardy - with the largest proportion of extant mega-fauna left on Aarde. Massive ungulates and pachyderms, many boasting equally monsterous trunk, tusk and horns dominated the grasslands. They were great and cantankerous beasts, too wild to successfully tame. Too violent. Though their numbers have wilted depressingly over the ages. For there was another adaption to these lands. One much more abiotic.

On the central east escarpment, sprawled out massive over many leagues, was Ferrohearth. The Capital of Aldria. Golden and marbled. As domineering as the grasses it so blatantly emulates and rises above. Its districts were alive with commerce and industry, lined with high walls and battlements. The population was coaxed into supplication by a grand idea that their servitude was a part of some divine plan. That the way the world is now was not only unavoidable - but just.

At the heart of the capital was the central palace. The throne of gold stewarded by red-eyed shadow. Its gleaming marble complex was both monument and tomb. Though that's beside the point.

Katia Revochel had just been there. The newly minted 'Commander of the Fourth' concluded meetings with the the war council and found herself somewhat hot under the collar. Three months they gave her. Three months to clean up their mess. An impossible task. But one she did not shy away from, regardless of her doubts or fears. She would leave by the next morning.

Exiting the complex, Katia turned to a gruff man accompanying her, her sergeant-in-arms and honor guard. "Make preparations, sergeant-" She began with her falsely lower register. "We leave first light on the morrow. I won't indulge any delays. Understood?" The gruff man nodded and left her without a word. The typical occurrence. She hadn't yet earned 'Ser'.

She held down her indignation and left the complex. She walked purposefully under the morning sun towards a small stream that was near. Dressed not in her usual form-fitting armor of silver-platinum but instead a fine white dress, lined with black furs. It was regal and composed. Flaunting without being too garish. Unlike some others. Her purpose - to do some reading. In peace. Truly. Perhaps one of the last opportunities she's get.

"I swear-" She began to monologue as she made her way. Her tone returned to its high pitched neutrality. "Those utter bastards on the council are intentionally sabotaging me." She huffed quietly. She gave one solitary stamp with her foot against the white stone walkway. A petulant habit.

"Have any of them even seen the Gransa Forests?" She continued, drawing closer to the stream, she entered a quiet grove. A private park reserved for the elites. It seemed out of place. Too green. Almost wild. "Its ridiculous! To think that any progress will be made in three months given the situation."

She walked toward a tree, old and without manicure, its leaves falling in tarnished bronzes and golds. She trailed a pale hand along its weathered bark. An almost longing sense washed over her as a lock of ash-blonde hair fell down over her face. Fastidiously, she retracted and brushed it to the side. "I mean- How long has it been now? I was a child when this mess started and to think I'll manage to fix it in three bloody months!" She slumped against the tree. She heard the distant chatter of Ferrohearth and the running of the nearby stream. It was odd that she found comfort here. Righting her posture she pulled out from her carrybag a novel. A romanticized piece about ancient heroism. It seemed oddly hollow in this moment. With a deep exhalation, she opened the book - Chapter 12 - and began reading along. Pushing down that doubt banging warnings in her head, focusing instead on the fiction before her. The stream held its melody with the percussion of semi-distant civilization. Yet, another note would disquiet this otherwise fragile faux calm. Footsteps approach.

Omens

The evening sky painted a sickly glow on the white landscape. A hazy mist clung near the ground, frost apprehensive to escape the throws of gravity. Sickles of ice clung to the leaves of the forest pines like jealous lovers. A voyeuristic carrion bird, a three-eyed omen, mocks at the coming of the night, knowing it would eat well. Soon.

The land still held scars. Ancient and rueful. Black-stone obelisks that jut the land with some rarity. Heretical and indecipherable. The constructs would've long been torn down and destroyed by the glorious Kingdom of Aldria; yet, the Gransa horde has driven the taming and rehabilitation of these lands to a halt. It should've been easy for an alleged mighty kingdom to force a disparate horde into compliance. However, the Gransa were not just a disparate horde. And this would not be easy.

The world seemed different. This far north. Alien. At least to Katia Revochel, newly minted commander of the famed Fourth Aldrian Army; who spent her whole life in rigid, formulaic orchestra. Her days had always been spent with long hours of studying, sparring and courting. A stark contrast to the environment she found herself in now.

The land here was volatile. Avalanches, spontaneous blizzards, hidden crevices and lakes of ice. Innumurable unseen threats behind every thicket.

The land here was hungry. Nothing went to waste. The birds saw to that specifically as if mandated. A niche that competitively excludes them from the very same fates they jeer.

The land here was merciless. Katia witnessed a male bear murder a cub in some brutish territorial dispute. A common enough occurrence. This was the natural order of things. But as she sat and watched at a distance as the brutish grizzly began to devour the cub while it was still alive, mewling for a mother that never came, Katia couldn't help but be unnerved.

It doesn't help that she hates the cold - the ice. It reminded her of someone.

Then there was still the Gransa to worry about - the rabid, barbarian horde. Bent on chaos and violence, waging a protracted guerrilla campaign against the righteous Aldrian peoples. The Gransa's methods were as brutal as they were efficient. Sudden attacks that seemingly come out of nowhere, strike at the rears of the Aldrian armies, before suddenly vanishing like a ephemeral mists. They hampered logistics, brutalized moral, murdered civilians in sojourns southward, and mutilate corpses. They were truly the most abhorrent of creatures Katia has ever witnessed. Still, though, Katia remembers the first one she killed. It was no animal, no hulking beast or abomination. Just a man, barely in his prime. bleeding into the dirt.

As Commander Katia marched on horseback at the front of her party, ten strong plus her; her thoughts kept lingering on the capital, Ferrohearth, bustling and gold. Already homesick. Though, she'd never admit it. She'd just concluded a summons from the capital for a meeting with the war-council. Some tripe about "Failure is not an option" and "On the remaining honour of your family". Out of touch fools. Regardless, Katia's head was high and proud, her verdant green eyes practically glowing in the golden evening rays against the snow. Her ash-blonde hair flowing behind her as a stream of tarnished gold. Her armor, form-fit platinum, was polished and perfect with the livery and filigree of the Golden Tree shining proud as intricate adornments on the plate. Her pristine silver sword was sheathed comfortingly at her wasted, ready and willing. She continued North, back to her army and a frozen hell, far from the warm sacred gold of her home.

The sky's sickly hues darken at a concerning pace as the party moved through an increasingly sinister forest; with the ever lingering threat of blizzards and worse, Katia would not be caught in the dark. Though, she didn't want to spend another night on the trail. She grimaced.

"Tch-"

A burly rider to Katia's left raised a brow at his commander's silent chastisement of the natural order. "Ma'am?" He asked with his voice hoarse from the frigid air.

Katia exhaled through her nose, she was still getting used to commanding. "Sergeant! Oversee and make preparations for camp!" Her voice was forced and measured, not with her natural high pitch, but an attempt at a commanders' lower register. "We stop here tonight. We trek again first sunrise to re-couple with the Fourth. Understood?" Her voice rang strong enough and true, barely hinting at the uncertainty wrecking her core.

The sergeant promptly nodded and began barking orders to the other men of the band. Practically instantly, soldiers began dismounting in turn, scrambling with hurried but practiced effort to begin camp, racing against the looming darkness.

Commander Katia stayed mounted. She kept her gaze forward through the darkening woodland, the frozen inferno. Her eyes narrowed as she studied the pines.

A three-eyed carrion bird circled in the sky. They were an omen that Katia didn't believe. Perhaps she should have.

For there through the pines, history was making its move.

Silver lost in white.

The acts were done. The signs had been ignored; the events set into motion. The ambitions of Gold are surely over.

In the frigid north- where the cold pines stretch endless over harsh, white terrain like cleaved fangs. Where the black obelisks of history's deceptions still tell their sacrilegious truths. Where the three-eyed carrion circle in skies alight with azure aurora. It was in this boreal north, this abattoir of rime, that the advent would occur. Has occurred. Under a cold moon.

Katia Revochel sat slumped against the tree. Her green eyes wide and her breathes coming in as ragged gulps as she fought to regain her composure. She'd been marching alone for hours. Her ash-blonde hair stuck firmly against her pale, sweat slicked skin. With trembling hands she griped the furs of her cloak, something to ground her, to cover. To offer up any semblance of comfort and warmth. She didn't want to grip her sword anymore. The thin blade seemed more like an indictment than an implement of glory.

The images flashed in her mind again.

The uncanny stillness that was the clearing. The gold fabric tarps and canvas that billowed torn and helpless on skeletal frames of charred wood. Metal from armor and arms glinted in the dim light, littered about to be consumed by the hoarfrost. And the memories of the friends and foes who now lay dead in the snow. Their existences only to be celebrated by the carrion as eloquent offerings. Hundreds and hundreds of bodies she saw. The corpse of the Fourth Army. Her reactions should've been commended, given the circumstances. Her and her ten honor guard worked quickly in an attempt to establish any sort of triage. But no survivors remained. Nothing to be saved. Throat cutters had seen to that. Katia paused over a body of one of her men. A soldier no older than she was. His gear was basic - a white gambeson, lacking much of the vanity present on even her own silver-platinum armor. Some farm boy perhaps, or an urchin.

No longer.

Here he was now, a lump on the floor. His chest was ripped open - crowning outwards at the sternum by a monstrous force. The heart was gone, leaving only the empty, glistening cavity of bone and wrecked connective tissues. His abdomen was torn, its contents splayed around. Offal. Meat.

Another loss was missing both of his hands, his head was scalped and his eyes plucked from their sockets. His skin held the burns of one that had been struck by lightning as he stared upwards through void pits into oblivion. These were her soldiers. She had aimed to know them all by name; and she hadn't been here when they'd perished.

Would it have made a difference?

She broke down then. Overcome by the sight of her mutilated soldiers. The smells of their vitae and excrement. The guilt of the loss - of only being here now. Too late. Failure. She could taste it all.

It was filthy.

No one went to comfort her while she was there in the snow. On her knees sobbing to a dead boy she would never know the name of. Either by their own overwhelmed emotions or their the fact that many could no longer offer kindness. Her honor guard were too repressed, agitated and frankly, too far gone.

Katia was the only true interloper of these savage lands.

A primal, animalistic call from the pines beyond the clearing. The eulogy would have to be cut short as several figures approached. They were brawny, clad in thick furs and wielding weapons as ragged and crude as the beasts that bared them. Coming out so openly like this was unlike the usual Gransa operandi. They were cocky. It was a relatively small band, surely looking for stragglers or to come pick at the remains, but nevertheless twenty strong. The Aldrians were outnumbered.

It offended Katia.

She rose with eyes swollen red and stood with what remained of her world against them.

It would've almost been enough.

Though it wasn't.

She had at least survived. Quite literally by the virtue of her last soldier, her sergeant, giving their life so that Katia could land the decisive blow. She ran the last Gransa through the back, leaving her alone in a foreign territory where it seemed the very landscape itself wanted her dead as much as its denizens. And to what ends now? So, as Katia sat slumped against the pine hours after the fact, far from the bloodshed and fleeing the memory, she dissociated. A quick escape. She closed her eyes to drift. Perhaps briefly to home. Perhaps never to again return. She'd have no choice. Something approached.